Some Funny Anecdotes

Cutting is the norm…

I have a classmate who is quite goofy in the best way. I believe he has even referred to himself as a space cadet (: I won’t share their name, but they have been living in Israel for a number of years now. Israelis are honestly a conundrum of sorts. They are very willing to help you and will go as far as to walk you to your exact location if you ask for help. But they will also make sure they get in line before you if you are after the same thing haha. One day my classmate was standing in line at the grocery store when a woman cut the person who was behind him. So he asked this woman, “why did you do that, it’s not a nice thing to do!”. She responded with, “I don’t know what the other person is doing here, I don’t know if they are in line, there was room for me to get in line here.” My friend was baffled. Of course it is clear everyone was in the store holding all their groceries to check out. But even the person who got cut in line acted like it was no big deal and seemed to feel like it was their own fault. At the same time, when I get lost and I stop someone to ask for help, they will go the extra distance. It is quite baffling.

Dating .. ?

One of my classmates who is married and has family here in Israel asked Lauren and I what we thought dating would look like for us in Israel since we know we will only be here 3 years. He was asking he doesn’t think he would be able to do what he does without the support of his wife. Do we plan on dating or not, etc. We both gave similar answers, saying we weren’t really looking for anything, but if the right person came along, we would give them a chance. Interestingly, several of my classmates have already gone on dates, even though we have only been here a month. One classmate told us she had already set up a dating profile on a Jewish dating app, mainly to see what, or more accurately who, is out here in Be’er Sheva. In a purely coincidental meeting, we passed her walking down the street on her first official date a few days later. Laughing about the fact that she couldn’t deny she had gone on a date, she later debriefed us just saying it was different and not what she expected. Another friend managed to snag a date with a really cute (her words not mine haha) delivery guy who frequently brings her packages she ordered online. She gave me the lowdown on how guys should behave respectfully on a date since I honestly have very little date experience. The tips she gave are as follows.

Number 1: The guy should always get there a little early.

Number 2: As the girl, we should ALWAYS be a little late.

Number 3: They guy is supposed to check during the date that you have enough to drink and eat, and if not, they should take care of it.

Number 4: They shouldn’t keep you out too late, but they should make sure and ask you plenty of questions about yourself.

Number 5: They MUST be tall and cute haha

But her date report was very positive. She stayed and talked with him for several hours and said she would meet up with him again (: Even if it just turned into a friendship, she would be satisfied. My final dating story is about a fourth-year student who I met at bible study. He is about to get married in October. From his story, he was at a low point romantically after a failed date set up by his friends, when they suggested he set up an online profile. Apparently if was very successful for him. He met his fiancé on a dating website for people who want or plan to be missionaries. This is CRAZY to me haha. I’m not against online dating, but I have always felt that it is a bit risky and not for me. But maybe I need to rethink my perspective? Not now of course, I don’t have time for that haha. But what do you’ll think?? (: I’m open to suggestions and opinions lol.

Lost in translation

In Hebrew class we did an exercise where we wrote down some information about ourselves (in Hebrew) and then we had to try and guess which person each description belonged to. It was very funny especially since some people honestly couldn’t even remember what they wrote. We were trying to guess one particular classmate, and in their description they stated that they liked/wanted סמים. Our teacher looked shocked at this. Of course, no one in our class knew what סמים is, we are beginners after all and our vocabulary is very limited. When she asked the person, it turns out what they were trying to say was spices, like you would cook with. Instead, the word they used means drugs haha. Two very different things. The funniest thing part about it is that our classmate had been going to stores and asking for סמים, aka drugs, when what they actually wanted was spices hahahaha. Everyone shared in the laughter over this mistake. Language is hard haha.

How can I make NO clear?

One evening Lauren and I were walking back from the bank when we were stopped by a man on a scooter. Normally the easiest way to exit a conversation I don’t want to be in to state, I only speak English. Unfortunately, this man just switched to English and continued. Apparently, he makes music and sells it to support himself and “spread the love”. He gave us his backstory which was honestly confusing and slightly contradictory, so I won’t even attempt to recount it here. I kept trying to give the CD back to him because he wanted 30 shekels ($10) which I found ridiculous, and also because I don’t have a CD player. I mean come on haha, that didn’t make the list when I moved. Finally, he asked if we were students, and when we said yes, he told us we could have the CD for free and we FINALLY went on our way. I think Lauren was about ready to go into ninja mode if he continued much longer, so we are luck it resolved when it did. So now I have a random CD sitting in my room and I hope I don’t bump into this insistent man again (: The CD actually has a website on it for the music, I haven’t tried it out, but if you are curious, here it is lol. http://nadavbenisrael.bandcamp.com

Bethlehem

This is a very short one. In Hebrew, Bethlehem is two words and it is spelled בית לחם. The first word (בית) is the word for house and the second word (לחם) is the word for bread. So a literal translation of the modern Hebrew spelling of Bethlehem is Bread House (: I just thought this was amusing. Also if you think about it super deeply and philosophically, Jesus was born in Bethlehem and He is the bread of life. Cool, right?

Is failure inevitable?

I had a Hebrew exam on Tuesday. Our class only discovered we had on exam the day before, Monday. Now Monday nights are the bachata dance class, which Lauren loves. So therefore, I enjoy them as well (: I honestly have a lot of fun, but seeing Lauren have the time of her life brings me the most joy. We decided to go, but decided to try to leave relatively early. By 11 PM I was ready to return to the dorms, get a small amount of studying in, and then sleep. As I was preparing to leave, I bumped into a guy, comically he is also named Guy, whom I had met the previous week. He was surprised I was leaving so “early” lol. When I explained I had a Hebrew exam, he asked how long I had been studying Hebrew. My answer was 3 weeks. He responded by saying, “Well then you are going to fail anyway, so why even worry about it?!” Jeezzz.. Thanks for the encouragement Guy lol. (in case you are worried, I don’t think I failed, but honestly I don’t know if it mattered in the end anyway haha)

I hope you at least chuckled once from these random stories (: Hopefully there will be more, because without laughter, it is a pretty bleak existence haha.